City Density—Friend of Trip Efficiency by The Geonomists

Hi Jeffrey, 

Thank you for submitting this proposal. I enjoyed reading it and appreciate how much thought and time was put into it. Having read it; however, I think that it would be helpful if you could encapsulate what you hope to achieve by submitting this proposal to the ClimateColab, how members of the ClimateCoLab community can help, as well as some proposed next steps to moving your proposal forward. There is a lot of information in your proposal for readers to digest and I think that a tighter 'What actions do you propose?'  section would be a great help to those who might resonate with your proposal, but not be able to see how it could be practically enacted in their jurisdiction.

Hello!  I'm Parag Gupta, an MIT Climate CoLab Catalyst.  I also enjoyed reading your proposal, and I think it is a farily novel way of looking at a pressing problem in urban and urban-esque environments.  I also think you would benefit greatly by looking at some more specific ways of moving the proposal forward.  A case study could be made for a specific city to provide examples.  Such an approach could also address political challenges.  Has anyone created white papers on such a topic?  Could you pull more quantitative specifics from prior work and/or such thought experiments for your own proposal.  The more specific you are, the greater acceptance you will obtain from stakeholders interested in the idea.  I do very much like the idea and where it is headed, though.  Good luck!

Dear geonomists!

Thank you for submitting your contest proposal.

I’m a Climate CoLab Impact Assessment Fellow who specializes in transportation. I have conducted an impact assessment of your proposal which you can find under the “IMPACT” tab. Please review the documentation and model parameters. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can contact us at @negah.   

Regards,

Negah

Hey, all, sorry to reply late. There's no way that I found of being notified of comments. I luckily stumbled upon these. Anyway ...

Hi, jharti. What I hope to achieve is more people pulling at the same end of the rope. Members of the team can help in the same ways that all new ideas spread -- talk about it, post about it, get groups they belong to to endorse, join a group focused on revenue reform, fundraise, join with others to make videos, to lobby, etc. A proposed next step is to endorse then to ask a local elected official to introduce enabling legislation. Communication says it all. Stay in touch.

Hi, Parag. Thanks for the comment. Enthused scholars have written white papers (mine has even been presented to several governments). Even better, every reform included in the essay is already in place somewhere. I linked to a summary of such cases in the bibliography. It's an idea that has worked well wherever tried. Not many ideas can say that. While more research may be helpful, what's really needed is figuring out how to make the ideas easily graspable then popular. Since I've already written a white paper, a useful next step for somebody would be to write the next generation white paper with all the statistical goodies they want. I could help with lots of sources and feedback. It'd help me to see how others present these ideas.

Thanks, Negah for the link to your good work. Parking structures were left out because they'd be anachronisms in a compact city where it's convenient to walk, pedal, ride busses, ride Uber. There almost as anti-civilization as running a freeway through the heart of a city. As for adoption rate, yes, here in the States, where politicians don't link public works to the rise in public land value, it is a harder sell. Much easier in Japan and elsewhere that do use the resultant rise in site value. So our politicians might have to smarten up You're right; we won't hold our breaths..